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Wednesday, June 10, 2009

I just shook my Yankees Magic 8-ball and asked it if the Yankees would ever beat the Red Sox? The reply was "outlook not so good." I don't really have a Magic 8-ball but if I did, I'm sure that's what it would say. The Sox have the Yankees number. No doubt about it. The loss tonight makes it 7 straight losses to the Sox. The loss puts the Yanks 1 game back of 1st. Can you imagine what would happen if George Steinbrenner was still George Steinbrenner? Heads would roll.

Chien-Ming Wang was terrible again. I stepped away from the game to give my son a bath. The Yanks had just tied things up. When I returned the Yanks were down 4-1 and Wang was out of the game. I saw on the replay that Swisher misplayed what looked like an easy fly ball. Who knows what would have been had he pulled that in? It's hard to say what exactly is wrong with Wang. He appears to be fully healthy. Like A.J. Burnett yesterday, he just couldn't find the plate and when he did, he got hit. I'm not ready to give up on Wang just yet. I see little gilmpses of that 19-game winner we all know and love. They're very little glimpses but they're there. I'm not sure how much longer the team can commit to him as a starter. He's been horrible. He's only lasted 13 and 1/3 innings in his 5 starts. Most guys knock that out in 2 starts. Wang needs to make a huge turnaround and pronto. I guess the silver lining is that he lowered his ERA .12 points. It dropped from 14.46 to 14.34. Yikes.

Phil Hughes did a good job in relief. He made 1 real mistake. Outside of that, he was pretty damn good. You can totally see that Hughes is a different guy out there. He appears to be a hell of a lot more confident. They mentioned that on the YES broadcast. I forget who said it. It was probably Michael Kay. Kay and I agree on something. What's the world coming to? While I'm talking about Michael Kay, I really hate it when he drops the phrase "rally in their bones." I cringe whenever I hear it.

Tonight's game was very winnable. The Yankees knocked the Sox pitchers for 11 hits and 5 walks. There were plenty of opportunities to score some runs. They had runners on in every inning and had runners in scoring position in 7, They needed that big hit and it never came. As a team they went 2 for 15 with RISP and left 10 on base. It was definitely a game the Yanks could have won.

Mark Teixeira had a huge night at the plate, going 4-for-5 with 2 doubles and a jack, raising his average to .296, which is remarkable considering how poorly his season started. What's most amazing is that Teixeira has the 2ndhighest batting average on the team, .001 point behind Jorge Posada, who is hitting .297. Tex is now ahead of Jeter (.295), Damon (.291), Cano (.293), and Melky Cabrera (.293). It's hard to believe that Tex was hitting .191 on May 12th. In less than a month, he's raised his average over 100 points. Insane.

Melky Cabrera's star is rapidly falling to Earth. After going 3-for-5 against the Phillies back on 5/24, Melky was hitting .328. He were are 9 games later and his avergae is now 35 points lower at .293. He's gone 6 for 36 over that stretch. I'm not sure how much of that slump, if any, can be attributed to his shoulder injury. How long will it be before his average is down in the 250 range? Hopefully it won't get that low but it is Melky Cabrera we're talking about. I just pulled up Melky's situational stats and they're less than stellar. Coming into tonight's game, Melky was hitting .315 with the bases empty. The average drops considerably with runners on base. With runners on, he's hitting .264. With RISP, he's hitting .250. With RISP and 2-outs he's hitting .136. As a team the Yanks are hitting .272 with runners on, .265 with RISP, and ,243 with RISP and 2 outs. Melky is on the down side of all those stats. I have a bad feeling that it's only a matter of time before Gardner gets some more starts in CF.

The Yanks really need to win tomorrow. The standard for a 3-game series in Fenway is to win one game. It's tough to go into Fenway and win 2 out of 3. It happens, but it seems like most of the time, the Yanks take only 1 game. Hopefully, for the team's sake, that game is tomorrow. CC Sabathia gets the start and if anyone can beat the Sox, it's CC. He's the ace. He gets paid to win these kind of games. The Yankees should be able to beat Brad Penny. On paper, this is the game that most favors the Yankees. If only it were played on paper.

1 comments:

Good point on Melky and the possibility of his shoulder contributing to his woes at the plate, J-Boogie. Just last week, the Yankees had several players over .300. This week? None, not a one. The team is in one of those swoons, and 2-15 with RISP last night was a joke.

Hughes has been excellent, and hopefully he'll be in the rotation instead of Wang, who is a complete mess. CC has to be The Man tonight against the hittable Penny with the 5.85 ERA. This is a must-have game.